Anna Giacca

Court papers (1997) show that the police were investigating Anna Giacca for having links with the Bologna cell of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) led by Mohamed Saidani, known as Abu Muad. The woman was a live-in partner of the Moroccan Abdellatif Zoache, who was GIA’s cell leader in the Naples area and engaged in the illicit business of procuring and subsequently forging identity documents. Not surprisingly, the couple was found in possession of counterfeit stamps that they affixed to stolen Italian identity documents, some of which were found in Peshawar, Pakistan, along with fake Afghan passports forged in Italy.
The Bologna group led by Saidani was linked to Djamel Lounici’s network (active since at least 1993) through the militant Abderrahamane Kifane, known as Bahja (investigated in multiple prosecutions) and to the active cell in Zenica, Bosnia, that committed the terrorist attack in Mostar on September 18, 1997. The bombers included the Tunisian Kamel Karray, an individual who was an integral part of the Bologna cell.
Kifane was in direct contact with Anna Giacca’s partner, Zoachae, from whom he would ask him for documents to provide to his associates through the password ‘shirt’. In addition, Kifane appeared to be the primary person responsible for managing the fake documents of the entire Lounici network.

Not least, wiretaps on the Bologna cell revealed a terrorist program that was to take place at the 1998 World Cup scheduled to be held in France; the code name for the operation was, trivially, ‘the program’. This plan came directly from Peshawar, where the Jordanian Saif Eddine Wahhed resided. He managed the flow of militants to be sent to training camps in Afghanistan.
Specifically, one conversation reads:
“… we have a program, and we have to finish it …”; “… because the brothers have organised this program for six months … we have to finish everything within six months, that business thing …”; “… I went to visit some places here …”; “… 6 more months, everyone gets set up, and leaves and no one stays …”; “… the work has to be united with God’s help if God wants … understood?”; “… work this of the occasion of the world cup, understood? …”; “… (in a low tone) understood! This occasion is …”
In Italy, the enlistment activity – aimed at sending militants to training camps – was managed by the Tunisian Yousseff Abdaoui, known as Abu Abdullah, who was hierarchically under the command of Saif Eddine. In intercepted conversations, Abu Abdullah referred to the latter as ‘the President’. Moreover, Abu Abdullah had close ties with the Cremona and Crema cells, which operated to facilitate the introduction of illegal acquaintances into Italian territory through documents procured by Kifane and Anna Giacca’s partner, Abdellatif Zoachae.